520 



NATURE 



[September 29, 1892 



In conclusion I have to point out, as shown by my in- 

 vestigations commenced four years ago, that farmyard 

 manure laid on to the land is only rendered properly 

 available to the crops by the action of bacteria as indi- 

 cated above in connection with the natural humus. The 

 inorganic forces have little action upon it, except in pro- 

 ducing humic acid and other injurious matters. 



The most of the soluble mineral substances in a mature 

 soil, it may also be mentioned, are in the form of sul- 

 phate. They originate from the primary minerals as 

 carbonate, but are soon altered, mainly by the ferrous 

 sulphate. The sulphate unfortunately is not the most 

 suitable form in which minerals can be presented to 

 plants for absorption, for the simple reason that, being 

 so stable in chemical union, it causes the loss of too much 

 of the plant's energy in the interior of its body before it 

 can be decomposed. It must be remembered that green 

 plants decompose the compounds which enter their system 

 before they utilize their elements or simpler forms in the 

 elaboration of food. Alexander Johnstone. 



Edinburgh, August 5. 



THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE AT ST. 

 PETERSBURG} 



IN November, 1885, some months after the publication 

 of Pasteur's discovery for the treatment of hydro- 

 phobia, an officer of the Russian Guards was bitten by a 

 rabid dog. This officer having been sent to Paris to 

 undergo the treatment, his Highness Prince Alexander 

 Petrowitch d'Oldenburg established, at his own expense, 

 a provincial laboratory at St. Petersburg, where Pasteur's 

 treatment could be duly carried out. This establishment, 

 however, soon proved to be too small for scientific inves- 

 tigations to be properly carried out therein, and it was 

 decided to build a large laboratory in which researches 

 might be made under the best possible conditions ; 

 accordingly the same enlightened nobleman bought a 

 piece of ground of 37,464 square metres in extent, on 

 which the present Institute is built. 



The buildings comprise physiological, pathological, 

 chemical, bacteriological, and epizootological sections, 

 with their laboratories, under the direction of such men 

 as Neucki, Winogradsky, and others. There is also a 

 department where Pasteur's treatment is carried out, 

 together with a small hospital for infectious cases. Each 

 section is complete in itself, and all the arrangements are 

 on the newest principles and on a very large scale. The 

 expenses are defrayed partly by the Prince of Oldenburg 

 and partly by public subscription, and the whole Insti- 

 tute compares favourably with any Institute in France 

 or Germany. 



The directors of the Institute publish every two or 

 three months a volume embodying the scientific results 

 obtained in the laboratories, and the first two numbers 

 have now been published. As might be expected after 

 what has just been said, their contents are of wide 

 and varied interest. Neucki publishes some chemical 

 researches on the microbe producing inflammation of the 

 mammary glands of milch cows and goats, and his paper 

 will specially interest those who in this country have fol- 

 lowed the remarkable researches of Dr. E. Klein. Wino- 

 gradsky gives an account of the various nitrifying 

 organisms discovered by him in the soil of different 

 countries. This author quotes the researches of Prof, 

 and Mrs. Frankland, and of Prof. Warington, and though 

 to some extent contradictory, Winogradsky's researches 

 agree with those of the English observers in all essential 

 particulars. This paper is certainly the most important 

 which has as yet appeared on this vexed question. The 

 results obtained by Pasteur's treatment in St. Petersburg 



' "Archives de Sciences Biologiques publi^es par I'lnstitut Imperial de 

 M^decine Exp^rlmentale a St. P^tersbourg," Vol. i, No. i et 2. 



NO. I 196, VOL. 46] 



form the subject of a paper by Kraiouchkine, and it may 

 be mentioned that the treatment appears to have been as 

 successful at St. Petersburg as in Paris. 



The other papers refer to the chemical and physio- 

 logical effects of tuberculin (Bujwid, Helman), to the 

 transformation of nutritive media by the bacillus of 

 diphtheria, and to the chemical composition of this 

 micro-organism (Dzierzgowski and Rekowski), while 

 Blachstein endeavours to draw a distinction between the 

 bacillus coli communis and the bacillus typhi abdomin- 

 alis, based on the chemical decompositions produced by 

 these organisms in the media in which they grow. Lastly, 

 Mizerski and L. Neucki give a critical risume of the 

 methods used to estimate the quantity of hydrochloric 

 acid contained in gastric juice. 



The researches which form the subjects of these papers 

 are varied enough, and whilst congratulating their authors 

 we may express the hope that the Institute will have a 

 long and prosperous career. Our good wishes must be 

 tinged with regret for ourselves — regret that there should 

 not be a similar Institute in England, and regret also that 

 there should be in this country a class of people who will 

 oppose the establishment of such an Institute until a 

 Bishop or Royal Duke has died of rabies. 



M. Armand Ruffer, 



NOTES. 

 Last week much anxiety was felt as to the health of Sir 

 Richard Owen. On Monday his condition was better, and the 

 improvement, was maintained on Tuesday. 



The herbarium of the British Museum has acquired, by pre- 

 sentation from the widow, the very valuable collection of Mus- 

 cinese, made by the late Mr. George Davies, of Brighton, It 

 comprises upwards of 20,000 specimens of mosses, hepaticse, 

 and lichens, partly gathered by Mr. Davies in Great Britain and 

 on the Continent, partly communicated to him from New Zealand, 

 Samoa, India, the West Indies, and America, 



Prof. Hieronymus has been appointed curator of the Royal 

 Botanical Museum at Berlin. 



The Exhibition of the Photographic Society of Great Britain 

 was opened on Monday at the Gallery of the Royal Society of 

 Painters in Waterco lours. It will remain open till November 10. 



We regret to have to record the death of Mr. George Groom 

 Robertson. He was fifty years of age, and only lately, in con^ 

 sequence of ill-health, resigned the professorship of Mind ana 

 Logic at University College, London, to which he was appointed 

 in 1866. Prof. Robertson was well known as a brilliant teacher 

 of the subjects to the study of which he devoted his life, and ai 

 the editor of Mind. He was associated with Prof, Bain in the 

 editing of Grote's "Aristotle," and was theauthorof the volume 

 on Hobbes in Blackwood's series of "Philosophical Classics.' 

 He also contributed to the latest edition of the " Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica." 



Dr. George Dixon Longstaff died at Wandsworth on 

 Friday last in his ninety-fourth year. When a young man he 

 was assistant to Dr. Hope, Professor of Chemistry at the 

 University of Edinburgh, and he is believed to have been the 

 first teacher of practical chemistry to medical students in this 

 country. He was one of the founders and a vice-president of 

 the Chemical Society of London, 



Students of folklore will be sorry to hear of the death of 

 Reinhold Kohler, librarian at Weimar, where he was born in 

 1830. He died on August 15, Dr. Kohler was a man of great 

 learnmg, well known as an authority on the subject in which he 

 was chiefly interested. 



